Ask a Manager


Book Description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together




Do More Great Work


Book Description

You work hard. You put in the hours. Yet you feel like you are constantly treading water with "Good Work" that keeps you going but never quite moves you ahead. Or worse, you are mired in "Bad Work"—endless meetings and energy-draining bureaucratic traps. Do More Great Work gets to the heart of the problem: Even the best performers are spending less than a fraction of their time doing "Great Work"—the kind of innovative work that pushes us forward, stretches our creativity, and truly satisfies us. Michael Bungay Stanier, Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, is a business consultant who’s found a way to move us away from bad work (and even good work), and toward more time spent doing great work. When you’re up to your eyeballs answering e-mail, returning phone calls, attending meetings and scrambling to get that project done, you can turn to this inspirational, motivating, and at times playful book for invaluable guidance. In fifteen exercises, Do More Great Work shows how you can finally do more of the work that engages and challenges you, that has a real impact, that plays to your strengths—and that matters. The exercises are "maps"—brilliantly simple visual tools that help you find, start and sustain Great Work, revealing how to: Find clues to your own Great Work—they’re all around you Locate the sweet spot between what you want to do and what your organization wants you to do Generate new ideas and possibilities quickly Best manage your overwhelming workload Double the likelihood that you’ll do what you want to do All it takes is ten minutes a day, a pencil and a willingness to change. Do More Great Work will not only help you identify what the Great Work of your life is, it will tell you how to do it.




The 4-Hour Work Week


Book Description

Offers techniques and strategies for increasing income while cutting work time in half, and includes advice for leading a more fulfilling life.




Overload


Book Description

Why too much work and too little time is hurting workers and companies—and how a proven workplace redesign can benefit employees and the bottom line Today's ways of working are not working—even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition, and underperformance. "Flexible" work policies and corporate lip service about "work-life balance" don't come close to fixing the problem. But this unhealthy and unsustainable situation can be changed—and Overload shows how. Drawing on five years of research, including hundreds of interviews with employees and managers, Kelly and Moen tell the story of a major experiment that they helped design and implement at a Fortune 500 firm. The company adopted creative and practical work redesigns that gave workers more control over how and where they worked and encouraged managers to evaluate performance in new ways. The result? Employees' health, well-being, and ability to manage their personal and work lives improved, while the company benefited from higher job satisfaction and lower turnover. And, as Kelly and Moen show, such changes can—and should—be made on a wide scale. Complete with advice about ways that employees, managers, and corporate leaders can begin to question and fix one of today's most serious workplace problems, Overload is an inspiring account about how rethinking and redesigning work could transform our lives and companies.




Deep Work


Book Description

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2O16 PICK IN BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP WALL STREET JOURNAL BUSINESS BESTSELLER A BUSINESS BOOK OF THE WEEK AT 800-CEO-READ Master one of our economy’s most rare skills and achieve groundbreaking results with this “exciting” book (Daniel H. Pink) from an “exceptional” author (New York Times Book Review). Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill. 1. Work Deeply 2. Embrace Boredom 3. Quit Social Media 4. Drain the Shallows A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.




Time Management Ninja


Book Description

“This book will help you own your calendar, block time for what matters most and reclaim your life.” —Paula Rizzo, author of Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You You want more time to spend with family, to achieve big goals, and to simply enjoy life. Yet, there seem to be more and more things competing for your time, and more distractions interrupting your day. Craig Jarrow has spent many years testing time management tactics, tools, and systems and written hundreds of articles on productivity, goals, and organization, Through it all he’s learned a simple truth: Time management should be easy, not complicated and unwieldy. And it shouldn’t take up more of your precious time than it gives back! Time Management Ninja offers 21 rules that will show you an easier and more effective way to take control of your time and manage your busy life. Follow these simple principles and get more done with less effort. It’s no-stress, uncomplicated time management that works. “Read this book, apply its rules, and you’ll find freedom.” —Hyrum Smith, bestselling author of Purposeful Retirement




More Work to Do? Taking Stock of Latin American Labor Markets


Book Description

We analyze the performance of labor markets in Latin America since the late 1990s. Strong GDP growth during the commodity boom period led to important gains in employment and a fall in the unemployment rate as labor demand outpaced an increasing labor supply. We emphasize the role of informality in the dynamics of labor markets in Latin America. A re-examination of Okun’s law shows that informality dampens changes in unemployment accompanying output fluctuations. Moreover, we present some evidence that countries with higher redundancy costs and cumbersome dismissal regulations, exhibit “excess” informality over and above what would be expected based on their income and educational levels. Labor market reforms could thus contribute to reducing informality and increasing the responsiveness of labor markets to output growth. However, looking at selected case studies of reforms using the synthetic control method, we find mixed results in terms of labor market outcomes.




Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More


Book Description

Want to conquer your e-mail inbox once and for all? Need help getting organized and staying focused? Start reading! Millions of people already benefit from the innovative, time-saving tips that Stever Robbins dispenses each week in his #1 ranked Get-It-Done Guy podcast. Now he's come up with a 9-step plan to transform even the most overwhelmed into an overachiever. You will learn to: Beat procrastination by speed dating your tasks: You'll face anything if it's just for three minutes; schedule small, finite periods of time for those tasks that seem too overwhelming to get started on. Give your technology a performance review: Our smart phones, PDAs, and computers often make less work in one area while making much more work in others. Review your technology to make sure it's delivering on its promise. Cut out the small talk: Small talk builds superficial relationships, which is a grand waste of time. Ask better questions to make instant connections that'll benefit you for years to come. Written in the uniquely humorous style Stever is known for, Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More will help you break the bad habits slowing you down and holding you back. Work less and do more—your free time is waiting!




What the Most Successful People Do at Work


Book Description

The third mini-ebook by the acclaimed author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast reveals how a few simple changes can make you more productive and fulfilled in your career. In her bestselling mini-ebook What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, Laura Vanderkam showed us how to take advantage of our often ignored morning hours to achieve our dreams. Then in the sequel, What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend, she revealed why the key to a better week is a better weekend. Now, in the third mini-ebook of this trilogy, What the Most Successful People Do at Work, Vanderkam shows us how to ignite our careers by taking control of our work days. For many of us the typical workday makes us feel like hamsters on the proverbial wheel. Plagued by crises and distractions, we work hard all day. But when we go home we’re not much closer to reaching our goals. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Vanderkam shows how successful people employ certain daily practices to make sure their work hours are invested, not squandered. Drawing on research and interviews with people as varied as children’s book illustrator LeUyen Pham, productivity guru David Allen, fitness personality Chalene Johnson, and former race car driver Sarah Fisher, Vanderkam shows how to take control of your career by taking control of your 9-to-5.




Great at Work


Book Description

The Wall Street Journal bestseller—a Financial Times Business Book of the Month and named by The Washington Post as “One of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018”—is “a refreshingly data-based, clearheaded guide” (Publishers Weekly) to individual performance, based on a groundbreaking study. Why do some people perform better at work than others? This deceptively simple question continues to confound professionals in all sectors of the workforce. Now, after a unique, five-year study of more than 5,000 managers and employees, Morten Hansen reveals the answers in his “Seven Work Smarter Practices” that can be applied by anyone looking to maximize their time and performance. Each of Hansen’s seven practices is highlighted by inspiring stories from individuals in his comprehensive study. You’ll meet a high school principal who engineered a dramatic turnaround of his failing high school; a rural Indian farmer determined to establish a better way of life for women in his village; and a sushi chef, whose simple preparation has led to his unassuming restaurant being awarded the maximum of three Michelin stars. Hansen also explains how the way Alfred Hitchcock filmed Psycho and the 1911 race to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole both illustrate the use of his seven practices. Each chapter “is intended to inspire people to be better workers…and improve their own work performance” (Booklist) with questions and key insights to allow you to assess your own performance and figure out your work strengths, as well as your weaknesses. Once you understand your individual style, there are mini-quizzes, questionnaires, and clear tips to assist you focus on a strategy to become a more productive worker. Extensive, accessible, and friendly, Great at Work will help us “reengineer our work lives, reduce burnout, and improve performance and job satisfaction” (Psychology Today).